Now onto the nitty-gritty.  Who is going where?  In my opinion, this is going to be the key factors on which teams will be successful for the 2008 year.  Furthermore, I think that the integrity of the term “under contract” has been breached and can almost now be looked upon as a “guideline” than “rule”. 

There are still many seats that have not been filled for the coming season.  Force India, formerly known as Spyker Ferrari, has yet to decide its driving lineup.  Looking for some second rate drivers to prevent them from going over budget and to go through some teething issues for their debut year.  Rumors have it as G. Fisichella and R. Schumacher are to name a couple of drivers that are applying for the teams. McLaren are not quick to find a replacement for Alonso’s position, but I really believe that De La Rosa needs to step up to the plate and become an F1 seated driver.  He’s tested for McLaren for several years now, however, when he replaced J.P. Montoya at the end of 2006 and on other occasions, De La Rosa exceeded his team’s expectations.  He may not be the fastest guy out there but he has the speed and consistency to help McLaren get into the constructors championship fight. 

Alonso… Oh Alonso, where are you going to go?  Speculations are that he’s looking for a one year deal before making a decision to go to a team that he feels comfortable going to and staying.  We know that the following teams are not going to be replacing their drivers or removing drivers to get Alonso a seat.  Ferrari, the drivers’ and constructors’ champions, are going to stay with Raikkonen and Masa.  Red Bull have already re-signed Coulthart and Webber.  Scudaria Toro Rosso just re-signed Sebastian Vettel and signed Sebastian Bourdias.  BMW are staying with Kubica and Neidfeld.  That leaves many teams that have either one or two openings.  Williams is strong in keeping Rosberg but still have one opening.  At this time I’m not sure if Honda have fully re-signed Button and Barrichello and Renault have not disclosed on what to do with Kovelinen now that Fisichella is testing at Force India.  The problem is that Alonso my want too much money and he may only want the one year contract. 

Toyota and Super Aguri have yet to declare drivers, but they’ve been conducting testing to see where to go.  Potentially, there could be some swapping around of drivers that are associated with one another to put Alonso in a higher category team.  An example of this would be to move Barrichello to Super Aguri (Honda related) to make room for Alonso.  Also, if Renault want Alonso back, they could use Briatore to move Mark Webber (he’s Webber’s manager) around to give that one year at Red Bull before coming back over to Renault.  This could be good for Webber if he could somehow get into a forefront team like McLaren or Williams. 

So there we have it for right now.  As I said before these are all just speculations, but I think that it will be an interesting 2008 year none-the-less because of all the sporting changes.